By Lawrence Bommer www.chicagostagestyle.com

Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy just got a bit shorter.  David Bell’s swift and sure 75-minute version is a great introduction to a relentless tragedy where actions almost speak louder than Shakespeare’s words.  The rugged and attractive 13-member cast hurl themselves into the unstoppable story, seemingly as caught up in the witches’ prophecies as the evil title characters and his satanic spouse.

The one-act begins with an excellent explanation to the younger audience members who encourages them to let the sounds of Shakespeare sweep them away even if the words aren’t familiar.  It’s “like a new album where what the music makes you feel” is all that really matters.  Besides, it’s “just English” and belongs to us all.

Hardly a family-friendly plot, “Macbeth” for all its graphic overkill delivers a cautionary lesson in the perils of ambition fueled by supposed supernatural sanctions.  Macbeth may be “entrapped” by the weird sisters but he’s more than complicit in his own corruption—and his one noble moment comes when he fights to the death, fully knowing he’s doomed.

The violence is not sugar-coated.  Children have no doubt seen a lot worse in video games they’ve played.  Mark Montgomery’s action-figure Macbeth manages to play both victim (of the witches’ enticements) and villain with equal gusto, his motivation all but guaranteed by Lesley Bevan’s carnivorous Lady.  With all the cuts, their most searing lines retain all the power of the original.

All other roles pale before these two but Mike McNamara suffers magnificently as Banquo, the witches’ first beneficiary and literal fall guy.  The others, athletic and as ready to kill as to die, are willing pawns in the play, never more obviously than in the contagious combat scenes.

My one problem remains the cynical ending.  In a production that has cut almost an hour from the action, Bell dares to add an ending that Shakespeare never could have endorsed and his audiences would have found repellent.  He gives the final moment, not to Malcolm’s triumphant victory over evil, but to the witches--who apparently are just as ready to corrupt Malcolm as they did Macbeth.  It’s implied that it’s only a matter of time before he starts slaughtering his own Scottish citizens.

So what did we see through all of this for, if every king of Scotland is as ready to be ruthless as Macbeth?  Anyway, it’s his flaws that make Macbeth evil, not the witches’ prophecies—or Banquo would have turned out just as bad.  It’s a stupid and patently wrong ending that no audience member should ever blame on the Bard.  For more information on this show, please visit the Theatre In Chicago Short Shakespeare! Macbeth page.